This is just a note to let you know that your correspondence has been shared with the Honourable Stephanie Cadieux, Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, for review. The Minister will ensure that you are sent a response specific to your comments and concerns.

We regret to inform you that we sadly must bring to the Provincial Government’s attention verygrave abuses by the present local government of the City of Victoria with respect to its abusive manipulations of the citizens of Victoria during this voting event.

This FORMAL COMPLAINT is accompanied by a respectful request that the senior government intervene in the public interest of defending endangered democracy in Victoria and all of British Columbia.

We believe that if the Victoria Byelection-Referendum results are allowed to stand unobstructed by the Provincial government, that residential taxpayers across the province will then be put in extreme danger of being further similarly abused by stimulus-addicted non-accountable local governments with grandiose, frivolous, and often very expensive vanity projects, while other more pressing social problems of homelessness, and rampant drug addiciton are left unattended.

This is unacceptable to us, as are the results of the City of Victoria’s recent stolen byelection-referendum, where a Councillor was supposedly elected with only 7.08% of the eligilbe voters’ approval and a borrowing of $49,200,000 was supposedly endorsed by a wide margin when in reality only 15.67% of the eligible voters endorsed the socialist mayor’s plan.

We believe that this is a grave abuse of the democratic process that if left uncontested by our Provincial Government, will set a very dangerous precedent.

We therefor beg of you to intervene and start by nullifying the results of the Victoria Byelection-Referendum.

We respectfully refer you to the following link where we elaborate our reasons for provincial intervention, and our suggested reforms.

We hope to hear from your offices at the very earliest instant.

Thank you very much for considering the sad state of our fragile democracy in Victoria, British Columbia

Very sincerely yours

Gregory Hartnell (‘Goyo de la Rosa’), Artist-Historian

David Burke (‘David Jure’), Author, Shakespearean Thespian

Former Concerned Citizens Coalition Candidates for Victoria City Council

“The Concerned Citizens’ Coalition will redirect our correspondence calling for provincial intervention into the Victoria Byelection-Referendum to Barry Penner, the new Attorney General of British Columbia,” said Gregory Hartnell, President of the Concerned Citizens’ Coalition.

“We hope that the new Attorney General will focus on responding as soon as possible to our previous letters to former Attorney General Michael de Jong, wherein we laid out our reasons for asking for Provincial Government intervention and nullification of the results of the sabotaged Victoria Byelection – Referendum of November 20, 2010,” said Hartnell.

Did ex-councillor Sonya Chandler abandon her seat for other reasons than to continue her education in Europe? We will never know—but certainly, once she did, Mayor Fortin’s “Yes” crew decided that was the pretext they needed to call the extraordinary referendum, thus avoiding accountability to Victoria voters during the regular election. Despite insisting they wanted a high voter turnout, the “Vote Yes” campaign undertaken by the Fortinites was totalitarian in its ordering of citizens to vote a particular way, without providing matching funds for “no” propaganda for the naysayers. That historically unprecedented Orwellian campaign of fearmongering, threats of bridge closures, tax hikes, earthquakes, etcetera had the desired effect.

The silent majority boycotted or absented themselves from the process altogether, thus sabotaging it with their huge non-participating cohort of 74 percent of Victoria’s eligible voters. Once the size of that cohort was understood by City of Victoria officials, they should have declared the exercise null and void, because once that cohort goes above 71 percent, it is impossible to get a true scientific indication of the will of all of the Victoria Registered Voters. This suited the purposes of both the “Yes” side and the NDP minority in it that supported Marianne Alto, who got only 4,529 votes of 10,020 “Yes” voters.

Thus, contrary to what Danielle Pope, Mayor Fortin and others now suggest, the turnout in the Victoria Byelection-Referendum of November 20 was not a “surprisingly high turnout” at all, with only 16,542 (25.95 percent) of 63,930 total registered Victoria voters participating. Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin certainly cannot say with any real scientific or ethical authority that he has seen a “high level of turnout” when only 15.67 percent of eligible Victoria voters support his plan to tear down the heritage Johnson Street Bridge.

When one considers that a staggering 84.33 percent of Victorians did not endorse the “Yes,” we have a huge cohort of 53,910 naysaying and boycottingVictoria Registered Voters who cannot be said to have indicated any approbation of the Fortinite new bridge plan. Neither can Saanich resident Marianne Alto claim victory with only 7.08 percent of registered voters supporting her. (59,401 or 92.92 percent of Victoria’s registered voters did not vote for her.)

That is the reason why the Concerned Citizens have asked the Premier, the Attorney General and the Communities Minister responsible for reforms to the Local Government Elections Act to intervene in the public interest, nullify the results of this travesty of democracy and bring in reforms before the 2011 election so that this abuse is not replicated in other provincial cities.

Thus, we completely disagree with the insidious anti-democratic idea as suggested in your cynical Weekly Report Card that “the City does do what it likes”—and we are determined to stop them.

City of Victoria’s neglect is evident in this 2009 Gregory Hartnell photo

Re: Bridge vote passes by 60% (News, Nov. 24)

Contrary to the false assertion made in this editorial, 47,388 absent registered voters, the vast silent majority of 74 per cent of Victoria’s 63,930 total registered voters, did not support the tiny minority of 10,020 Yes votes with their silence.

It is simply not true, and impossible to prove, that the absenteeism of the majority of Victoria’s eligible voters in the Nov. 20 referendum can be understood as tacitly supporting the City’s efforts.

The Concerned Citizens’ Coalition is calling for the senior government to immediately nullify the shocking results of the recent abusive farce of democratic process in Victoria, to order the City to reschedule the referendum to coincide with the municipal election in 2011.

During recessions, governments turn on the printing presses and interest rates plummet as governments move to inflate the money supply in response to an an ensuing economic meltdown.

Initial effects seem good.

But using spending to cover up economic ills leads to rampant inflation.

This process has already begun, the latest StatsCan figures suggest.

Inflation causes a brutal economic “hangover,” making things worse in the long run.

Although the Blue Bridge is only a local or regional project, it is an example of what permeates the thoughts of decision-makers across North America.

We need to stop this insanity.

There are other transportation alternatives to the Blue Bridge replacement.

For instance, the Bay Street Bridge route could direct traffic toward the North Douglas corridor, which is now designated a high-growth and high-density development zone in the Official Community Plan for Victoria.

Without a firm guarantee of rail across the Blue Bridge, it is more practical to promote rapid transit along the Douglas corridor.

Eventually, Victoria taxpayers will pay for a “Yes” vote through higher taxes and displacement of businesses to the West Shore.

CCC BLOG repost:

Bridge bills will hurt city in long run

Avi Ickovich

Victoria Times Colonist: timescolonist.com

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Page D3

Will the philistine socialists continue to neglect our heritage bridge?